Doing my research for the upcoming panel session at Streaming Media Europe I came across this:

Intelligent Video: The Top Cultural & Educational Video Sites

Some good links! Check it out.

In case you missed this excellent round-up in last Sunday’s Observer:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/aug/31/youtube.jazz

They just don’t make them like Ella Fitzgerald any more! And that rare footage of Jack Kerouac reading from On The Road is pretty amazing too.

I think one of the most wonderful things about the net is the way that it’s democratised access to art and enables artists of all kinds to get their work out there. Now we can watch artists’ films and studio interviews; exhibition openings, performances and documentaries – and understand more about why artists do what they do and how they do it.

Saatchi Online TV reports today “HITS IN THE LAST 24 HOURS: 69,073,647. RANK TODAY IN THE WORLD’S TOP 50.000 WEBSITES: 195″ – this just shows how much visual and contemporary art is now embedded in our culture.

The BT Tate Player (which I’m proud to have been part of during planning and developing) offers an immense archive of webcasts and vodcasts (Tateshots) and there are films dating back to at least 1935. Tate were also recently the first to develop a gallery tour for iPods and iPhones (for the recent Klimt exhibition at Tate Liverpool which I visited a couple of weeks ago).

For craft lovers there is also Etsy which if you haven’t heard of by now you really need to check out. It’s a site for people who make amazing hand-made stuff to sell their wares and connect with other artists through a really supportive online community. They’ve done some cool things with live webcasting which I’m trying to find out more about, and have a load of videos on their Etsy YouTube Channel.

Vernissage TV specifically offers coverage of openings and is a really simple site with absolutely tons of content. It’s somehow very good at being global and the clips are great quality. There’s obviously a plethora of niche sites and other gems out there too such as our own client the Video Art Gallery who offer online previews of work available to rent or buy, Baltic’s video podcasts, The Guardian’s multimedia offering of art reviews via journos turned webTV presenters.

One of my favourite’s last year was being able to see Bill Viola’s work for the Venice Biennale. Couldn’t make it to the show, but at least I got to watch it online. If anyone knows how to make video and art work together it’s him!

TED is one video site that seems to have gained instant respect from everyone I know who has checked it out. A fair few prospective clients have said they want their site to be like this one. It as a fine example of quality in terms of online video. What makes this site excellent is its high production values, and its combination of very intelligent speakers and a straightforward remit, raison d’etre, or whatever you want to call it. And what’s more fantastic is that every talk they publish is covered by Creative Commons licensing too, so you can download content, embed it, link to it and use it for good things.

The organisation started out in 1984 as a conference about Technology, Entertainment and Design, but they have expanded to great heights and now simply tell us their mission is spreading ideas worth spreading. Getting a huge number of inspiring people together is an undeniably simple but wonderful idea in the first place. Using this as an opportunity to film them and make their talks available to the masses is just brilliant really. I especially enjoyed a recent post from Paul Stamets: 6 ways mushrooms can save the world – truly enlightening for any funghi lover. Also I love the revelations of ape expert Jane Goodall (being a fan of making random monkey noises myself); Bhuddist monk Matthieu Ricard on habits of happiness is also a great one to watch.

Can Mushrooms save the world?

Another video site which does similar good work and has won accolades and awards is BigPicture.TV. It was founded and is still run by Marcus Morrell who saw the possibilities for online video years back, when not many people were doing it. He told me that he started it up with some inheritance money and was amazed by how willing people were to contribute their thoughts or skills to make some really interesting content. He’s currently looking at various business models and exploring opportunities – from my point of view there’s no doubt it will survive in this age of corporate social responsibility – and in light of our ever increasing awareness of green issues and the fact that we all need to do something positive to survive on this big blue beautiful planet! Check it out.